Dark Heart of the Handmaid’s Tale: Dead Texas Woman Kept on Life Support to Incubate her Fetus

In case you haven’t reached your dose of disturbing anti-abortion-related laws from Texas, here is one tale that could be a spine-chilling scene straight out of Margaret Atwood’s cautionary novel, “The Handmaid’s Tale”. [I originally wrote this piece in 2014, but have revised it with current updates.]

Marlise Muñoz, with husband Erick and their son Mateo — The Dallas Morning News

In 2014, a pregnant woman from Tarrant County, Texas was kept on life support against her and her family’s wishes so she could serve as an incubator for her 14-week-old fetus. The ordeal began on November 26 when Marlise Muñoz suffered a pulmonary embolism that left her brain without oxygen for over an hour. After her husband Erick performed cardiopulmonary resuscitation, he called for an ambulance. Upon her arrival at the John Peter Smith Hospital in Fort Worth, the situation turned from tragic to chilling.

Electric shocks and drugs started Marlise’s heart again and it continued beating with mechanical support, but her brain waves remained completely flat. She had gone far too long without oxygen and her brain could not recover. As her heartbroken family prepared to say goodbye, hospital officials informed them that they could not legally disconnect Marlise from her life support due to her pregnancy. Since doctors could detect a fetal heartbeat, state law forced them to turn Marlise into an unwilling incubator.

“Everything except the wings around my face is red: the color of blood, which defines us. The skirt is ankle-length, full, gathered to a flat yoke that extends over the breasts, the sleeves are full. The white wings too are prescribed issue; they are to keep us from seeing, but also from being seen.” –page 18

In Atwood’s book, a futuristic United States is a military theocracy called the Republic of Gilead. The handmaid, Offred, is the concubine of the Commander. Her function is to provide the Commander and his wife, Serena Joy, with a child. The couple is barren because radiation poisoning has compromised life on earth. Offred’s body becomes a baby-making vessel penetrated, on demand, by a hostile missile.

Evocative of Atwood’s dark tale, Marlise and her husband became victims caught in the crossfire of abortion politics in Texas. Mandating that a pregnant woman stay on life support — despite her wishes — shows the extremes to which Texas will hold the interest of fetal life over that of a pregnant woman’s basic human rights, including her dignity. Brain death during pregnancy is very rare, which makes the law symbolic rather than pragmatic or fair. If the motivation was to legally preserve an archaic practice of pregnant women being sacred incubators first and human second, this case has certainly flaunted it.

“One of them is vastly pregnant; her belly, under her loose garment, swells triumphantly. There is a shifting in the room, a murmur, an escape of breath; despite ourselves we turn our heads, blatantly, to see better; our fingers itch to touch her. She’s a magic presence to us, an object of envy and desire, we covet her. She’s a flag on a hilltop, showing us what can still be done: we too can be saved.” –page 26

Such a disturbing display of government control sets an alarming precedent for creating a ‘handmaiden’s tale’ of women harvested in the future as incubators, fertility machines and criminalized breeders. Clearly motivated by an anti-abortion ideology, the intent of the Texas law is to bestow legal personhood on fetuses as a way to seize control over pregnant female bodies. Fetal personhood seriously undermines the constitutional rights of pregnant women, not just for those who need abortions, but also for any pregnant woman.

In the United States, fetuses have legal personhood rights in at least 38 states, mostly through “fetal homicide” laws supposedly aimed at third parties who assault pregnant women. In practice however, these laws are used primarily to justify prosecuting pregnant women under child welfare laws for drug or alcohol abuse, refusing a Caesarean, experiencing a stillbirth or even attempting suicide. These unjust and cruel prosecutions tend to scare pregnant women away from seeking pre-natal care or can even motivate them to have an abortion. They also turn pregnant women into lesser citizens (AKA state sanctified baby-making machines) whose rights are subordinated to those of their fetus, as evidenced by pregnant women in the U.S. being jailed for “crimes” that are not crimes for anyone else.

Stephanie Marshall in the opera version of The Handmaid’s Tale Mark Ellidge

In Atwood’s book, the main protagonist, Offred, wears the coveted tattoo of a ‘handmaiden’ due to her fertility. Dressed from head to toe in scarlet cloth, she is marked as government property and a valuable resource. When the Texas hospital’s decision became public knowledge, I imagined a scene out of the novel where anti-abortionists and the religious right danced around in ecstasy singing “praise the lord” with pointed and hissing tongues.

Due to the hospital’s attempt to so aggressively assert the law, the Muñoz family was forced to watch Marlise’s body deteriorate as doctors waited to see if the fetus she carried would develop normally. What should have been a very private tragedy (and decision) for the Munoz family was turned into a political rallying point for the sort of anti-abortion people who refuse to demonstrate compassion or to respect the dignity and private decisions of others. By late January 2015, a state judge ruled that the hospital must release Marlise from life support at the direction of her family. She was taken off life support on January 26, exactly two months after she first collapsed.

I used to think of my body as an instrument, of pleasure, or a means of transportation, or an implement for the accomplishment of my will . . . Now the flesh arranges itself differently. I’m a cloud, congealed around a central object, the shape of a pear, which is hard and more real than I am and glows red within its translucent wrapping.—page 95

The Muñoz family is currently working on new legislation that would expand the rights of pregnant women and prevent other Texan families from enduring their painful ordeal. In March 2015, the family formally introduced the Marlise’s Law alongside state Rep. Elliott Naishtat at a press conference. The intention of the bill is to revise the state’s advanced directive by removing the most dangerous line: “I understand that under Texas law this directive has no effect if I have been diagnosed as pregnant.” The law is a way for the family to honour Marlise, who they believe did not have the right to die with dignity because of existing state law.

Untitled (Your Body Is a Battleground), Barbara Kruger, 1989

Alarmingly, many Texan politicians continue to see this case as a debate over a pregnant woman’s bodily autonomy and seem adamant on using it to erode the rights of pregnant women. In February 2015, state Rep. Matt Krause filed the HB 1901 law — in direct opposition of Marlise’s Law — would force brain-dead pregnant women to stay on life support if the fetus was developing. Further, a court-ordered guardian would be appointed to look after the unborn fetus and represent it in court no matter the wishes of the family or the pregnant woman’s end-of-life wishes. Disturbingly, this biased bill is clearly not about the fetus, but rather a means to relegating pregnant women to second-class status.

Just like in the land of Gilead, the religious right and patriarchs of Texas are attempting to take control of a woman’s body and violate her dignity and reproductive rights. In Gilead, the slain bodies of abortionists hang dead on the walls for all to see. In Texas, pregnant women may end up on display as incubators or sanctioned as criminals. Sadly, Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale is a chillingly accurate account of how male supremacy and the political power of the religious right is becoming the poisonous fruit that will lead to such tyranny.

And so I step up, into the darkness within; or else the light.–page 295

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